


Curses

by A_Stressed_Cupcake



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, I wrote this when I was sick so, Implied asexual Alastor but headcanon what you will, Vaggie is tired, inspired by animatic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21971590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Stressed_Cupcake/pseuds/A_Stressed_Cupcake
Summary: Inspired by a beautiful animatic I'll link in the end notes.One year later, and another Cleanse rolls around.Charlie and Vaggie decide to get out of dodge, still, Charlie is nervous about everyone back at the hotel.But it's just a bad feeling. Right?
Relationships: Charlie Magne & Everyone, Charlie Magne/Vaggie, Vaggie & Everyone
Comments: 6
Kudos: 74





	Curses

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Creative liberties and headcanons, but no spoilers at all beyond the pilot

As the first Cleanse since the inauguration drew nearer, she cranked the publicity up to 11. Flyers, posters, door-to-door advertising, everything she could think of. All she got in return was laughter. In her face. And boy was it hard to keep a smile on her face when the denizens of Hell blew their humiliation (and their fetid breath) right on it.

It went a little better the one time she’d managed to get Alastor to come with her, but even then, no real results. Just empty, mumbled promises to look into it.

That was fine, though. She _had_ to find a method that worked, eventually. Right?

Except they really,  _ really _ didn’t have the time. They were less than ten days away from the Cleanse when Vaggie approached her about evacuating. That was what they’d done every year since they’d met (safe for the last, when they’d just locked the hotel down. That hadn’t been great on Charlie’s psyche). Just left town, went as far away as they could get. It had always worked out for them, better than fighting would have: Charlie couldn’t bring herself to hurt someone if it could be avoided and, although Vaggie would gladly fight anyone for her, it just wasn't practical to go one on God-knows-how-many.

Angel, though, had objected to the option. He'd been " _ just fine on his own _ " all those years, so why should he worry? Vaggie nearly blacked out trying to explain to him how goddamn  _ stupid _ that idea was now that he actually had a place to stay and people who could watch his back. He wanted none of it.

Alastor, too, wasn't too keen on leaving. He liked to stay right where he was during Cleanses, as it turned out. Good for him.

Niffty was slightly easier to persuade, though her skin was crawling at the idea of leaving the hotel for a whole, extremely bloody, day. She mused about how dirty it would be when she got back. As soon as she heard that Alastor was staying (and that it was non-negotiable), she made up her mind to stay too, since he'd assured her that no one would be stupid enough to attack  _ him _ after the last time that had failed (with terrifying results).

Charlie turned to Husk with pleading eyes.

He sighed: "Look kid, he has a point. This place is pretty safe. Besides, I don't wanna be the third wheel." he added, vaguely gesturing to Vaggie with his bottle.

Vaggie didn't seem to mind finally having some alone time after the stress that living with Angel and Alastor had put on her.

And so it was decided.

The ride to their hideout was long and silent. And terribly awkward. 

Charlie broke the silence as soon as they reached the edge of town: "I don't like this." she said.

Vaggie sighed: "I know you don't, hun. But you're worrying too much. Those guys have all been here a long time, I'm sure they can handle themselves."

"But what if they can't?" Charlie insisted, "I mean, we don't know if someone has a plan this year. We don't know if any of them have been targeted. We don't know if…" she paused.

"We don't know if  _ we _ 've been targeted." she murmured.

Her girlfriend frowned: “Hey, don’t think like that. We haven’t told anyone where we’re going.”

Charlie looked away, biting her lip.

“Charlie?”

She didn’t answer.

“Charlie, did you tell anyone where we’re going?”

“No!!” she exclaimed, way too quickly and way too loud for it to look casual.

Vaggie’s eyes narrowed: “You’re a terrible liar, hun. Who did you tell?”

Charlie fumbled with the buttons on her jacket, mumbling something.

“What was that?”

“Oh, just…” Charlie cleared her throat awkwardly. “...just one person.”

“Who was it, Charlie?”

She gave an awkward laugh: “Just...just Alastor.”

Vaggie blinked. It took her a moment to process what was simply the latest in a long series of proof that she was the only one with common sense around there. She only had one question.

“ **_Why_ ** ?” she hissed. 

Charlie raised her hands in defense, laughing nervously: “I...I thought that would convince him to come along!! I wanted to discuss strategy.”

“Oh, Charlie…”

“He asked me nicely, what was I supposed to do?”

“Charlie…”

“Plus he promised not to tell anyone e-”

“Charlie.” 

She flinched when Vaggie’s hands came down on her shoulders.

“Charlie, you’re reeling. Just…” she sighed, “Nevermind that asshole. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Okay?”

She nodded.

The rest of the trip was quiet.

Thankfully, the awkward mood between them had lifted by the time they reached their little cabin. It was nestled in the side of a mountain at the very edge of the Pentagram. No one had  _ ever  _ bothered them there. 

Charlie’s mood had considerably improved the moment she’d stepped through the door. Immediately, she dove on the couch laughing like a child. She did love that couch. It was  _ softer than theirs _ , she swore.

Vaggie set down her bag. It really only had some food in it, plus their sleepwear, because, to quote Charlie,  _ it had been too long since their last sleepover _ .

She couldn’t say she blamed her. They’d kind of been holding back on the warm and fuzzy since Charlie had become invested in her project. Charlie had tried to set up movie nights with everyone, but it hadn’t really stuck after they’d let Angel pick the movie. And while it  _ was _ difficult to find PG-13 movies in Hell, it was telling that even  _ Alastor  _ had picked a less traumatizing movie. That was an achievement if she’d ever seen one.

Vaggie knew she was in love. Charlie had somehow smuggled a few children's movies from the living world (and only shrugged and winked when asked how) and was busily setting up a little blanket nest. Cuddles weren't as frequent anymore because, even though they were the only surefire way to make Alastor leave a room, they also made Angel about ten times bitchier.

But there? They were in their little bubble of comfort. No one to bother them.

So when Charlie relegated her to popcorn duty while she set up the movie, she actually felt...fine. Relaxed. More so than usual.

Vaggie took a moment to sit on the table and relax. The intermittent popping, the smell of butter, the warmth, the humming from the next room, the softness of her PJs, everything made her want to stay there forever. Nothing was ever normal or familiar in Hell, not even with Charlie. But Charlie, with her smile that wasn’t creepy, with her laugh that wasn’t mocking, had such a fascination with good things, reassuring things. Familiarity. It was ironic that the one born in hell should be the most human of all. She was everything good that life had, all in a single person. Demon. Whatever. Point was, Vaggie was in love.

The blanket nest was so soft and warm that neither of them felt the need to move at all once they'd settled down into the Cuddle Pose, as Charlie called it. Vaggie held her girlfriend, who was draped across her chest. Charlie's arms latched behind her head, allowing her to occasionally snuggle into her shoulder or stroke her hair from the side. Vaggie, on her part, kept her arms around Charlie's waist to hold her closer. Around them, a mountain of blankets to provide additional support and warmth. 

This was, without a doubt, the definition of comfort. Yet Charlie didn't seem quite as content as she'd been the previous years. She wasn't gonna point that out during the movie, though. She needed a break. 

So it ended up being  _ after _ the movie that she gathered her strength and confronted Charlie.

“Okay.” she said, “What is it?”

“Mh?” Charlie seemed to snap out of a trance then.

“What is it?” she repeated, “Why are you so worried, hun?”

“Oh…” the girl lowered her eyes, “It’s nothing. I'm good now."

"No, you're not. What is it?"

"It's stupid…"

"It's not stupid if it bothers you, Charlie." Vaggie assured her.

Charlie bit her lip.

"It's just that… I have a bad feeling. I've never had so many people to ca…  _ handle _ before, and the idea that something might happen, it just…"

"Scares you." Vaggie offered.

"Yeah…"

She shook her head: "You're not responsible for them, Charlie. They're all adults. They can handle themselves."

"I know that, but…"

"Do you trust them?" Vaggie asked her.

Charlie blinked. "I trust them." she replied with conviction.

"Do you trust me?"

She didn't even need to think about that one: "Of course I trust you."

"Then that's all you need for now." Vaggie settled, moving her hand in a circle across her back.

Charlie smiled: "Okay."

As the credits rolled by, she could see Charlie smiling in the corner of her eye.

Mission accomplished.

  
  


It only got worse. The feeling grew like a tumor inside her, twisting her guts and- oh boy she was starting to sound like her dad. It didn't matter. Vaggie was probably right, there was no real reason to believe that any of those veterans she hosted would let themselves be caught in an angel's (or other demons') path. But accidents happened, and plans could be hatched. Raw power meant nothing in front of someone with a plan. To be fair, though, it wasn't unreasonable to think that her friends had a plan as well.

So there was no reason to worry.

Right?

Except… the usual side effects of the Cleanse were still there. Which meant they weren't off the hook yet, demon princess or not. The road in front of them was more and more piled with corpses as they went on to the center. Vaggie cringed at the rivers of blood streaming down the streets.

"Every year it gets worse." she mumbled, leaning against the window, "I can't wait until they see some sense."

"This  _ is  _ Hell…" Charlie gave a humourless laugh.

"Yeah… we're down here for a reason, aren't we?" Vaggie tapped her finger against the window in an attempt to remove a stain.

"Never a good enough reason…" she heard Charlie whisper.

The hotel stood tall and strange in front of them now. Growing weird, lanky and irregular, with its flickering sign on top.

_ HAZBIN HOTEL _

Vaggie got off first and almost wanted to shove Charlie back into the car and drive away, fast. The doors were blown  _ wide  _ open. Some of the glass had shattered and now lay strewn about the entrance hall. But that was not a sign of violence, right? If only. If only the glass hadn't been bathed in a massive pool of blood, she might've believed that. 

She stood staring too long to stop Charlie from running ahead. 

“ _ Guys _ ??” the girl called out. The crack in her voice, though, told her she wasn’t expecting an answer.

She called out again, every single name of every single person that was supposed to be there. No answer.

More puddles stained the floors and halls of the hotel all the way to the concierge, where more pieces of curved, blood-stained glass lay abandoned.

Charlie slowed down, walking dazedly to the stairs.

_ Clink _ .

Something shiny flew to the foot of the stairs, kicked away by Charlie. She gave a bleary look to the ground.

Vaggie took a single step forward. “Charlie?” she called.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she leaned down to pick up the object. 

A growing pain in her stomach pushed her forward one more step: “Charlie? What is that?”

She froze in her tracks. 

Charlie’s red eyes glistened with tears as she held up her find.

A cracked, red-tinged monocle.

  
  


Vaggie had been in difficult situations before. She’d been lost for words before. She’d wished she could do more before. But this time, she had no words for Charlie at all, nothing, because what do you say to someone who was right all along? Nothing she could say would fix the fact that Charlie's worries had been spot on and that she'd dismissed her for all of two days and now they were back and there was blood and shattered glass everywhere. And Alastor had apparently lost his monocle.

Some desperate part of her still wanted to keep Charlie in denial, though.

"Maybe...maybe they just left? Or hid? Maybe he just took that off." she suggested, well aware of how stupid that sounded. 

Charlie shook her head. The chain attached to the monocle dangled lifelessly from her closed hands. "No…" she murmured, "No, that doesn't make sense. The chain is broken." she pointed out. She was right. A half-opened link hung off the end of the chain.

"That doesn't mean anything…" Vaggie tried again, despite all evidence saying that yes, everyone (or at least Alastor) was probably dead: "Maybe he was doing something and he lost it."

"Lost it??" Charlie choked out a sob, "Vaggie, when's the last time you've seen him without the monocle?"

She froze. Charlie was right once again. She'd never seen Alastor without that stupid thing, hell, she could barely picture his face without it.

Her shoulders slumped.

"You're right." she admitted. "I'm so sorry, Charlie. You were right…"

Charlie's composure shattered on the drop of a dime. She stopped holding back the sobs entirely and ran right into her girlfriend’s undeserving arms, slumping down to bury her face in the crook of her neck. Vaggie pressed a kiss into her hair. It was better to just let her grieve than to speak and mess it up… again.

“It’s… it’s my…” came a muffled sob from her shoulder.

“Don’t say that.” she interrupted, “Don’t say that, Charlie.”

“Yeah, seriously.” someone complained behind her, “Whass the matter?”

Vaggie froze. The voice was annoyingly familiar, or perhaps familiarly annoying. But Charlie… oh, her back arched and her eyes flew wide and she was moving towards the voice before it was even finished. 

Angel had a bit of a limp, she noticed, and her eyes narrowed at the dark stain on his calf.

Vaggie looked down at Charlie as her face scrunched up in a tense, teary smile and she flew out of two arms and right into six.

“Woah!” Angel raised his brow, but closed his spindly arms around her regardless, “Ya good, toots?”

A single sob from Charlie shut him up. 

“Oh my gosh!!” someone whined from the doorway: “I told you to take it outside! Now look at this mess!!”

“Jesus Christ...” 

“ _ I did take it outside, darling! _ ”

"Not soon enough!"

_ "Oh, he attacked first. What did you want me to do? _ "

Vaggie nearly collapsed on the couch. "What the fuck?" she wheezed, staring at the faces of her bickering acquaintances.

Alastor reached up towards his eye, but seemed to change his mind at the last second: " _ There's really no need for that kind of language, my dear. _ " he admonished, shaking his head in disapproval.

"Ay, soooo… you guys okay?" asked Angel, squinting at the poor little demon in his arms, "Ya look like you've seen a ghost. Which, ya know…"

Vaggie ran a hand through her hair: "We thought you were  _ dead _ !!!" she chided, "What the hell happened here?"

Alastor laughed out loud: " _ Dead!! Hahah! What gave you that idea? _ "

A laugh track echoed through the hall.

Husk took a swig from one of the few bottles that were still intact: "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it was the massive amount of blood and structural damage in here." he suggested, rolling his eyes. Niffty made a little whining noise in the back of her throat, already running to the supply closet.

"Aaah, that ain't our blood." shrugged Angel.

"But then…" came a muffled voice from his chest: "...whose is it?"

Angel lifted his arms to let Charlie out of the hug, but she kept an arm around his waist regardless. She rubbed her eyes. She seemingly hadn't noticed the wound on his leg yet.

" _ Oh, merely a particularly rude intruder! _ " Alastor laughed, making a careless gesture with his hand: " _ Nothing of concern, I'm happy to say _ ."

His eyes set on Charlie and his brow shifted upwards just a little: " _ Oh, don't mourn living people, my dear. It's impolite. _ "

"Fucker blew the door down  _ again _ …" mumbled Husk: "We should get a sturdier door."

Vaggie gave everyone a closer look. Husk seemed fine, just more pissed than usual. Niffty, although she was moving just a little slower than normal, looked uninjured. It looked like Angel and Alastor had taken the brunt of the attack; they sported, respectively, a cut on the lower calf and a tiny scratch on the cheek (although that wasn't even bleeding). Both of their suits were slightly disheveled: Alastor's jacket now showed just a tiny piece of the shirt underneath and Angel's pant leg was stained and slashed in several spots. Vaggie felt the need to point out the wounds. "Was it the door that gave you those scratches?"

Charlie flinched in alarm at the mention of wounds, but Angel shrugged her off: "Yep. Should prob'ly clean this up."

" _ Ah, yes. _ " Alastor intervened: " _ I'm afraid Angel Dust and I were caught in the range of the glass exploding. I do believe that was the intent of our unfortunate friend. _ " 

He reached up to fix his monocle again, only remembering he didn't have it when his fingers brushed against his cheek. His smile didn't falter, but there was a glint of annoyance in his eyes.

Charlie must have noticed, because she finally left Angel's side (Vaggie could've sworn she saw concern flicker on his face for a moment), reaching in her jacket pocket.

"Al…" she said, "I'm sorry, I panicked a bit. I found this and I just…" she trailed off, holding the monocle in front of him.

" _ Ah!! _ " he exclaimed, plucking it out of her hand: " _ I knew I'd lost this somewhere! Thank you, sweetheart. _ " 

He gave her a brief pat on the shoulder. It looked almost affectionate.

The laugh track sounded again as he chuckled to himself, reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief to clean his monocle with.

"Can you even see without that, dude?" Angel inquired, casually sitting on the table to take some weight off his injured leg.

" _ Don't be silly, my dear fellow. Of course I can!! _ "

"We've been with him this whole time." Husk pointed out, "We would've noticed if he'd been blind."

" _ Would you _ ?" Alastor teased, finally setting the slightly cracked monocle back in its rightful place beneath his eye. The snapped chain still brushed the side of his face, but he'd apparently decided that was a concern for a different time and place.

Vaggie turned back to her girlfriend. Charlie was smiling wide, but her eyes were staring into the void. So she sat beside her and touched her shoulder, bringing her back to consciousness.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Charlie nodded vigorously. "They're alive!" she smiled, letting out a relieved sigh: "Well...kinda. They're relatively alive. They're  _ here _ . That's it."

Before she could even reply, Charlie had sprung to her feet: "Oh!! I'd better take care of that cut…"

She slapped her forehead, marching off towards Angel.

Vaggie sat alone on the couch. They were fine. Everyone would be fine. But goddammit, that had been a scare to last them a lifetime.

She scanned the room with her eyes. Angel seemed to be bitching amicably to Charlie about the random demon that had been stupid enough to blow their door down and had gotten his ass handed to him by Alastor, who, on his part, seemed to be checking the damage the lobby had taken. He kept brushing the corner of his suit with a sigh. Husk had put the bottle aside for a moment to go talk to Niffty, who was completely frantic in her attempts to clean the blood off the carpet. 

"Oh my gosh, this will take forever!! Look at this mess!!" she complained, dumping her blood-soaked sponge into a bucket.

"I'll help you." Vaggie offered.

With the help of the whole staff, the hotel was clean by sundown. With a little help from Alastor, they had a new door installed by nighttime.

"No more splitting up during a Cleanse." Charlie had established, and no one had objected.

Because, honestly… they weren't doing that bad. And they'd had enough scares to get old for that day.

**Author's Note:**

> And so no one died that day :D  
> Well, except for the dude who thought it would be a great idea to blast Alastor with a door :)  
> Like I said, I took some creative liberties and there may be a lot of canon divergence because I'm not caught up on the original Hazbin Hotel yet. But I'm getting there, I promise.  
> I wrote this while horribly sick and then my radio broke so I think this fic may be cursed.  
> Angel hugs with all six arms because he's that Xtra.
> 
> Original animatic: https://youtu.be/qEjgY4SpTZE  
> Charlie's Curse (by Icy Twaine)


End file.
